Chapter 1: Introduction
AN: This fic contains graphic imagery and adult content, please read at your own discretion.
It was quiet.
The tide crashed and fell against the boat, bringing plastic bottle and litter in it's wake. The brackish breeze, which was tainted with the sour aroma of pollution, fluttered through the makeshift sail. A man stood at the bow patrolling the shore with his piercing blue eyes, ever watchful for danger. He wore a blue chullo hat, which covered his messy black hair. His face was rough with stubble and his skin was darkened by the harsh sunlight. It had been many years since the man had been to his birthplace of the cold mountains of Colorado, but the man felt more at home on the sea than he ever did in the mountains.
"Craig! We're ready to head out." a brunette man called to him.
Craig grabbed his empty supply bag and turned to leave, securing his blue chullo hat as we walked. He had travelled halfway across the country to find a better life and escape the madness.
It was probably around the year 2025, but he couldn't be sure, he'd spent so long on the sea that he didn't care for counting the days and opted for counting the seasons instead. Life had radically changed since he was a kid. Everything was broken, the world had just, fallen apart. The catalyst was the year 2012; after a series of freak natural disasters, everyone's paranoia about the apocalypse set the streets aflame with crazed rebels. The government tried to intervene and protect the peace, but between the quickly deteriorating cities and diplomatic issues abroad over resources, they could not contain it. The military was rapidly losing control and as soon as there were no more supply drops, they could no longer protect the civilians, who were starving and sick.
People began to die soon after, in numbers that wiped out entire camps and outposts.
People fought and killed one another for supplies, families died of disease, children died of thirst. Within this madness, there were people who plundered and murdered, and were even known to eat human flesh out of desperation. They were constantly travelling to find, always searching for supplies. They called themselves Nomads.
Amongst the rubble Craig's family was able to find refuge in an abandoned house's basement. It was that dark, moist room that Craig spent his last seven good months with his family. His mother, his father and his little sister all acclimated to a humble life quietly foraging for food and surviving.
The disaster brought his family closer than ever, he never thought that he'd be so close with his little sister Ruby, who turned out to have the same sarcastic attitude that Craig had. Ruby was the only friend Craig had, but he'd never had a more satisfying relationship. They stuck together like glue.
For a while, Craig was able to forget that the world outside was shit.
But good things don't last long anymore.
One night when they were all sleeping, they heard people outside. Craig's father woke everyone up and they huddled together in the farthest corner of the room, praying to God that they would pass over the house or leave them peacefully. They prayed that they weren't Nomads.
They heard cracking wood and smashing from the floor above. Craig felt each sound stab his heart in fear.
Then they heard the basement door break open.
They grabbed Craig's mother by the hair and started to drag her away. His father got up to charge them with a fire axe before they could drag away his mother. But as he began to propel forward he was shot in the face, which sprayed blood and brain matter over Craig and Ruby. Craig held tight to Ruby trying to conceal her, still frozen in place with fear.
His mother bit a Nomad in the leg while she writhed and screamed. Craig watched the man beat his mother in the head until she went limp and they dragged her up the stairs. Craig couldn't close his eyes.
A large Nomad grabbed Ruby and ripped her from Craig's grip, and Craig finally found his voice again.
"RUBY!-" He was silenced by a fist to the side of his head, which sent his vision spinning. He then heard them inspecting his sister.
"She's not bad looking, a bit young, not too skinny." Their greedy eyes darted up and down Ruby's body; a disgusting smile crept over their features. Craig felt sick to his stomach, knowing exactly what would be done to her.
"I swear to god if you lay one finger on her—" The men pushed his head into the dirt floor. Ruby let out a strangled cry.
"Yeah, but…hang on," Ruby coughed a bit as she cried. "You hear that? She's sick, she won't last the winter."
"Well, shit, I don't suppose we could slice off her legs and dry her, yeah?"
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HER, YOU FUCKING HEAR ME? I'LL-" His threats fell silent as they beat him until he could hardly see or hear. He tried to scream but nothing would come out. They laid Ruby on the floor with her face down; he could hear Ruby's choked up plea's for Craig's help.
"Craig, I don't want to die." She sobbed, Craig tried to lift his body again but it was useless. She turned her head towards Craig, barrel pointed to the back of her head. Her eyes were clouded with tears, and she was trembling like he'd never seen before.
"Craig—"
There was the sharp resonating boom of gun fire.
Then she stopped moving, and right before his eyes his sister was dead. Her eyes still glued to his, but dull and hollow. They dragged her out of the basement, and then looked at Craig.
"What about him?"
"He's too skinny to carry anything, and he's probably brain damaged after beating his head in. Don't waste your bullets, we've wasted enough today."
Craig's body could only twitch, he felt blackness overcoming his vision as he slid in and out of consciousness. Craig heard retreating footsteps, as his vision went black.
Craig woke up to the smell of blood and death. He wasn't sure how long he was out, but it must have been over a day. The blood on his face and clothes was dried but the pools of blood on the floor were still wet. Craig looked up to see the face-down figure of his father, stiff and unmoving. Craig's stomach lurched and he threw up what little had been in his stomach.
He sat with his knees up, hugging them as he let out anguished moans and sobs. Everything around him was gone. Everything that mattered to him was taken within ten short minutes. Craig glanced around and saw that most of his family's supplies were gone, the axe his father had wielded had been wrenched from his cold dead hands. Craig sat there until his cries softened and he was able to get up and scrounge around for what had been left behind.
Craig grabbed a backpack and was relieved to find his family's hidden stash of goods had been untouched. He gathered anything he could carry and left the basement, unable to look back.
He had been trained to survive for the last year and a half or so, but for a lone fourteen year old the prospect of survival was bleak. He followed the highways to the east, he wasn't sure of what he might find, but anything seemed better than being trapped inland. He used skills to travel quietly and invisibly, the only safe way to travel alone. If he didn't die of the elements, then he would certainly die at the hands of Nomads. There was no way he could survive a second encounter. The only weapon he had was a hunting knife, which didn't fare him well if there were multiple people.
It took him months, but when he started to smell the ocean air, was when he finally started to relax. He'd only visited the ocean a few times in his life, but it was always comforting. He loved the water, and when he heard the waves crashing against the sea cliffs, he knew he was home.
He camped around the coast for another few years, learning how to live with the ocean. He learned how to fish, how to extract fresh water from salt water, how to tell when a storm was coming. The sea had a calming effect, no matter its fury, there was always something static about it that Craig found reassuring. Craig preferred routine and the predictable; where everything in his life had gone to shit, he could always rely on the ocean for it's consistent tides and waves, and it's predictable nature.
He struggled with loneliness. He had avoided people for so long, he hadn't spoken a word to another human for longer than he could remember. He missed his family. He missed Ruby. Even for a solitary person like Craig, isolation could be his undoing.
But one day he stumbled across a boy who looked his age.
The boy was sitting on a dock tangling his feet into the receding water line. He was visibly trembling and he could hear soft sobs coming from him. Craig watched him from afar for a few minutes unsure of how to approach the boy. His first instinct was to slip away, but his heart longed to find out who this boy was. The boy reminded Craig of himself, all alone. Craig went against his gut fight or flight feelings and spoke out to the boy.
"Hey, you ok?" The boy on the dock whipped around frantically almost falling off the wooden structure.
"Who the fuck are you?" Craig noticed the boy's brown hair was cut sloppily like he had done it himself. Craig instantly put his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.
"Easy, I'm alone, there's no one else with me. It's just me." The boy relaxed only slightly but his guard was still up.
"Oh yeah? Well how do I know you aren't lying? How do I know if I can trust you?" Craig only stared at him.
"My name is Craig, I'm from Colorado, what's your name?" the way the words rolled off his tongue it felt odd. Speech felt foreign to him these days.
"What?" the brunette asked, looking around for a way out.
"From what I recall, small talk is how people get know each other. Then you can decide if you can trust me or not." The brunette seemed flabbergasted, so Craig sat down slowly sure to not make any implication that he was there to harm him. For a few moments the two sat in silence, Craig was ok with that. After a while the boy loosened up a little and sat comfortably on the dock, still far enough away from Craig.
"Clyde. My name is Clyde."
Craig had never been so happy to speak to someone in his entire life. For years he avoided people out of necessity, but even before that, Craig wasn't popular, he was kind of an asshole. People didn't get him but right now, Craig was eager to speak to this new person, Clyde. He soon found out after Clyde had gotten more comfortable with him, how much the guy could actually gab. But Craig sat there and listened like it was the first time he ever heard someone speak.
The rest was history, and the two became extremely good friends. Craig found out that they compliment each other quite well. Clyde was a talkative, annoying, loyal son-of-a-bitch, while Craig was a quiet, sarcastic, asshole. Clyde could take Craig's bitter comments while Craig could deal with his non-stop jabber. They were exactly what each other needed, a friend.
It wasn't very long until more people started showing up, which were strangely close in age. While Craig tried not to say anything unnecessary, Clyde welcomed them all into their makeshift community. At least Craig could trust Clyde do the talking, however he did regret it sometimes. Clyde wasn't always the smoothest talker.
The people they welcomed included two boys that travelled with each other named Stan and Kyle, a girl from the area named Wendy, another girl from New York called Bebe, a boy named Token, a boy who preferred to be called "Butters", a guy named Kenny, and a fat boy named Eric.
Craig was appointed the tentative "leader" of their group, because he had the most knowledge about living on the ocean. He was able to teach the others some of the tricks of the trade, but he could always read the tides and weather much better than anyone else could. The raven-haired boy appreciated his hardworking, patchwork family, but always kept his distance.
Someone must have been looking out for them, because after a particularly strong set of waves over the night, Craig stumbled upon his greatest find yet.
There, sitting among the docks was an immaculate fishing vessel.
Craig actually had to rub his eyes to make sure that it was real. It was a bit rusted around some of the trim, and it had taken a bit of a beating probably from tossing around the ocean. But to Craig it was a Godsend. He vigilantly loomed closer to the rocking boat, in order to confirm its abandonment. He pulled himself over the bow and plopped onto the deck as quietly as he could. He checked every closet, corridor, and cockpit; there was no one aboard the boat.
Craig couldn't help the strange grin that spread across his face.
No one had ever seen him this way, but in this private moment of joy he could hardly contain the emotion that pulsated through him. This was his boat, and it was sent here for a reason. He took it as a sign from someone up there who was watching over him.
So he decided to name the ship Ruby.
The other's asked about it, but Craig never revealed the reason, or who Ruby was. Craig never spoke about his past, or much of anything else for that matter. The crew thought of Craig as this weird, mysterious man who didn't like anybody, which wasn't far off base.
The boat had two sleeping chambers with bunk beds. It was tight but they all fit. Craig however, slept in the top chamber of the boat where the steering was. He felt that it was necessary for someone to be above deck in order to keep watch. The boat may have drifted to them without people, but he wanted to make sure it stayed that way. After dealing with everyone all day, even though he could admit it was ok, it was nice to have alone time. He was able to watch out the windows and listen to the calming sway of the water. When he was tired he had a ratty futon that he could roll out on the floor to sleep. The wheelhouse wasn't large, but it was cozy. In the front it had the steering which was stiff and hard to turn. On either side there was a bench, and on one there was a small table like desk.
Fortunately he found that his group was resourceful. Wendy and Kyle were very intelligent; they helped design the add-on mast and sail to propel the vessel since gasoline was a rarity these days. Bebe and Kenny were excellent fishers; they even created their own jigs to attract more fish. Stan was perhaps more sensitive than some of the others but he supplied much needed manpower to help the ship along. Eric and Butters could cook up everything they caught and also preserve it, which was absolutely crucial to their survival if they were to be out to sea for many days at a time. They did have to keep tabs on Eric because there were times when Craig saw some missing goods which he was sure the fatass had eaten. Eric was probably the least trustable on board. Token became another one of Craig's closest friends. Like Clyde, he could also deal with Craig's bouts of dickish behavior and offer some different insight. He was very logical and could easily mediate a tense situation.
Over time, Craig struggled with depression. He had done a good job of keeping himself busy as to not be buried by his sadness. No matter what he did though, it always crept back at his most vulnerable times. Craig learned to stop it in its tracks and push it to the back of his mind where it couldn't get to him. As a result he become more and more distant and cold. It honestly left him a shred of a human being, which concerned the crew. They had no idea how to approach him, and if they did he would be so bitter and uninviting that they would just leave him be. Clyde become a liaison between the crew and the Captain, due to no one else being able to handle the new Craig.
When the group returned from shore to look for supplies, Craig took a deep breath of the cool Atlantic air. He and his crew were docked in Cape Cod at the moment, trying their luck with crate traps, but they hadn't been very successful. The pollution killed off a large percentage of the sea-life along the coasts, so it had been difficult to harvest near land, they had to move further and further offshore in order to make ends meet.
He heard Clyde walking towards the end of the boat he occupied, his footsteps heavy.
"Craig, we got another empty trap. I don't know how well this area is going to do getting us anything." Craig pondered this for a moment before turning around and heading into the wheelhouse to look at his map pinned on the counter. Clyde followed him looking at where Craig was observing on the map. Then the raven-haired man placed his finger on an island near the border of Canada in the gulf of Maine.
"Here." He stated coldly. Clyde had to cringe at the sheer bitterness in his voice.
"Why there? It's so far away, and it'll be freezing!"
"Cold water means more sea-life. We'll also be less likely to run into rebels here."
The brunette wanted to press his decision further but knew he wouldn't get anything else out of the detached Captain. Instead he went to reset the makeshift sails and winch the cluster of cinder blocks they used for an anchor.
Craig had a gut feeling about this place. He knew it would bring them something good, he just didn't know what.
AN: This has been updated as of 6/21/16 I hope you like the updated intro, please let me know what you think of the story. Do you love it? Do you hate it? What are you hoping to see? Please review!